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If you were to ask many of your peers, hedge funds are seen as overrated, outdated financial vehicles of an era lost to time. Although there are more than 8,000 hedge funds trading currently, Insider Monkey focuses on the moguls of this group, about 525 funds. Analysts calculate that this group controls the majority of all hedge funds’ total assets, and by monitoring their highest quality equity investments, we’ve uncovered a few investment strategies that have historically beaten Mr. Market. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outstripped the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points per year for a decade in our back tests, and since we’ve began to sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have trumped the S&P 500 index by 33 percentage points in 11 months (see all of our picks from August).

Just as crucial, optimistic insider trading activity is another way to analyze the world of equities. As the old adage goes: there are a number of incentives for a corporate insider to sell shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would behave bullishly. Many empirical studies have demonstrated the useful potential of this tactic if “monkeys” understand where to look (learn more here).

At Q2’s end, a total of 27 of the hedge funds we track were bullish in this stock, a change of -13% from one quarter earlier. With hedge funds’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of notable hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings meaningfully.

According to our 13F database, Iridian Asset Management, managed by David Cohen and Harold Levy, holds the largest position in Joy Global Inc. (NYSE:JOY). Iridian Asset Management has a $79.7 million position in the stock, comprising 1% of its 13F portfolio. On Iridian Asset Management’s heels is Millennium Management, managed by Israel Englander, which held a $46.7 million position; 0.1% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Some other hedge funds that hold long positions include D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw, Philippe Laffont’s Coatue Management and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group.

Since Joy Global Inc. (NYSE:JOY) has faced a fall in interest from upper-tier hedge fund managers, it’s safe to say that there lies a certain “tier” of funds who sold off their full holdings heading into Q2. Interestingly, Rob Butts and Josh Clark’s Southpoint Capital Advisors sold off the biggest position of the “upper crust” of funds we key on, valued at close to $25.6 million in call options.. Israel Englander’s fund, Millennium Management, also dumped its call options., about $10.6 million worth. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest dropped by 4 funds heading into Q2.

Insider buying made by high-level executives is most useful when the company we’re looking at has seen transactions within the past half-year. Over the last 180-day time period, Joy Global Inc. (NYSE:JOY) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and 2 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

We’ll go over the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to Joy Global Inc. (NYSE:JOY). These stocks are Deere & Company (NYSE:DE), Manitowoc Company, Inc. (NYSE:MTW), Terex Corporation (NYSE:TEX), CNH Global NV (ADR) (NYSE:CNH), and AGCO Corporation (NYSE:AGCO). This group of stocks belong to the farm & construction machinery industry and their market caps are similar to JOY’s market cap.